30 THE HOKSE AND HIS RIDER. 



cularly easy to the rider, who, while partaking of the 

 undulating motion of his horse, can rest his wearied 

 body by slight imperceptible changes of position on 

 the pivot or " fork," on which, like corn waving in the 

 wind, it bends. 



The British cavalry sit astride above their saddles 

 very nearly in this attitude, which, as we have just 

 explained, enables them with great facility to cut, or 

 give point in front, right or left, at cavalry or at 

 infantry ; and if they were not embarrassed by their 

 clothing, as well as by their accoutrements, and if, as 

 in the region to which we have alluded, they were to 

 use no pace but the gallop, each would soon become, 

 or rather he could not help apparently becoming, part 

 and parcel of his horse. But our gallant men, although 

 they have been subjected to innumerable experimental 

 changes of dress, &c., continue not only hampered and 

 imperilled by a hard cloak, holsters, and carbine affixed 

 in front of their thighs, and imprisoned, especially round 

 their necks, within tight clothing, but their travelling 

 pace, the trot (a jolting movement unknown and un- 

 heard of in the plains of South America), gives to 

 their body and limbs a rigidity painful to look at, and 

 in long journeys wearisome to man and horse. Indeed 

 in the French cavalry, and occasionally in our own, the 

 manner in which the soldier, in not a bad attitude, is 



